Each animal is adapted to its ecological niche both through its evolutionary history and its current experience. Each faces the problem of partitioning its time (and/or energy) in such a fashion that it can successfully perform those activities required for reproductive success (e.g., feeding, territorial or status defense, courtship and mating, parental care, housekeeping, etc.). It is assumed that one of the major forces shaping the animal's adaptation to its niche is an optimization solution to this problem of time/energy partitioning. The present research, by laboratory simulation of the "relevant" aspects of the animal's niche, will provide precise tests of the manner in which the animal represents its niche, its strategies based on this representation, the processes by which it modifies this representation, and the strategies by which it does so. These questions have been dealt with only theoretically in the past by ecologists or in a few scattered field studies, and have not been considered by psychologists or physiologists at all. The research will focus on feeding behavior and explore the feeding chain, search, identification, procurement, consumption, and utilization by means of operant methodology adapted to niche simulation. Competing categories of survival-related activities will be introduced to explore their effect on feeding strategies.